Introduction
Climate change is the most dramatic anthropogenic forces to impact natural
systems and communities. One predicted change is that precipitation
will become more variable and intense over the next 100 years. To understand
how this change will impact communities, Ph.D biology student Ted Hart
created 49 artificial vernal ponds in the Jericho Research Forest during
the spring and summer of 2007. Each artificial pond had a unique water
depth and variability associated with it. The ponds were seeded with
leaf litter from a nearby pond, and insects were allowed to colonize
the artificial ponds. Each week Ted sampled the ponds, counting and
identifying different insects. This data allowed him to see how insect
families responded to different environmental changes. This research
will hopefully continue at Jericho and the results will be used to created
predictive models about vernal ponds will react as climate change happens.
Results
All insect populations decreased as the variability of simulated rainfall
increased. However, population response differed by family in response
to water level. The family Culicidae (mosquitoes) showed a decline as
water level increased, but all other families had an increase. This
means that as the hydrology of vernal ponds changes, insect community
will show a non-linear response. The implication is that there could
be the formation of novel communities that we might not otherwise have
predicted if all taxa showed a similar response.